kept his felt hat on his head, and his hands in his pockets, and stood looking at Bertram in a careless, quizzing way. But he was pale.
“Rather late for an evening call,” said Bertram.
Susan asked whether the servants had gone to bed, and when Bertram nodded, led the way into his study with her friend.
“Shut the door, Bertram, old boy.”
Bertram obeyed her. He had a sense of apprehension. There was something strange in his sister’s look and manner.
“What’s the game?” he asked.
Susan took one of his cigarettes and lit it by a spill from the fire before answering. O’Brien sat down in Bertram’s desk chair, and held his hat between his knees. He was wearing a trench coat, and looked shabby.
“It’s like this, Bertram. Dennis, who, by the way, is my man—we married a week ago—is ‘on the run,’ as they call it. He’s very much wanted by the English police, and I’m going to ask you to be sport enough to put him up for a day or two. He’ll stay close and give no trouble.”
She looked over at Dennis, and laughed in a low voice. Bertram noticed that one lock of her dark hair had come loose beneath her hat. Her brown eyes had a kind of liquid light in them, or some leaping flame, and her cheeks were flushed. She looked more Irish than he had ever seen her. Perhaps it was excitement that had set that part of her blood on fire, or the marriage she mentioned “by the way.” Susan married! To a fellow who was “wanted” by the English police! And the crisis in the family.
Bertram laughed, but mirthlessly.
“So O’Brien is ‘wanted,’ is he? And you’ve married him, Susan? Any more announcements?”
“That’s all for the present,” said Susan. She watched her brother anxiously, saw his face harden a little, and then went to him and clasped his arm with both hands.
“Bertram! You and I were always pals. You’ve helped me out of many a scrape, and never said a word. This affair is my worst scrape, and Dennis’s. It’s a question of life and death. Play up to the old tradition!”
“I want to know more,” said Bertram. He spoke sharply, and looked over at O’Brien, who was silent, with a nervous smile about his lips. “What game have you been up to in England? That arson business?” He remembered that several timber yards had been set on fire at the London docks, with Sinn Fein warnings of further damage.
Dennis O’Brien shifted his felt hat round, and stared at the brim.
“I’m not answering questions,” he said.
“Perhaps it’s worse than arson,” said Bertram. “Were you in Dublin last Monday?”
There had been an attack outside the Castle. Two British officers in a motor car, and three Sinn Feiners lying in ambush had been killed. Others had escaped.
Dennis O’Brien became more pale, and Susan drew in her breath sharply.
“I was in Dublin,” said Dennis O’Brien. “The point is whether you’re a friend or an enemy.”
“I’m a friend of Ireland,” said Bertram, “but an enemy of those who drench her with blood, and drag her into anarchy.”
“The English,” said O’Brien.
“Irish too, by God!” said Bertram.
O’Brien shrugged his shoulders, and said something in a low voice about the right to liberty.
Susan threw her cigarette in the fire and put her arm round Bertram’s neck.
“Brother o’ mine! It’s no time for argument about Irish liberty or English tyranny. Don’t you understand? Dennis is my husband and his life’s in danger. You must hide him here, for my sake!”
Bertram thought hard and rapidly. Susan’s words called to his chivalry. She was this man’s wife. And it was not easy to turn a hunted man from his door, anyway. But what about Joyce? In hiding O’Brien he might drag her name in, and her father’s name.—‘The Earl of Ottery’s daughter shelters an Irish rebel.’ The newspapers would make a fuss of that! And his own father’s name? Michael Pollard, K.C., who defended the policy of reprisals! A family scandal all round, and damnably dangerous!
“Can’t you find another place?” he asked Susan, weakly.
Susan laughed.
“The police were pretty close. We dodged ’em by the length of a street.”
She held his arm again, and said: “Big brother! Sportsman and gentleman! For the Irish blood that’s in you!”
“With English loyalty,” said Bertram, sharply.
“In that case,” said Dennis O’Brien, in a sullen way, “I’ll just slope out into the streets again. I take no favour from English loyalty. To hell with all its loyalties!”
He stood up and went towards the door, but Susan ran round the table to him and caught hold of his coat.
“Dennis, my dear! Bertram is all for Irish liberty. And don’t forget I’m half English too!”
“All Irish now!” said Dennis, in a low, passionate voice.
Bertram watched them. His face was flushed, and he had thrust his hair back so that it was all tousled.
“This is a devilish affair,” he said, “but if O’Brien cares to stay here, he can have that sofa!”
“Well played!” cried Susan softly, and with those words she kissed her brother, and her eyes were wet and shining.
“It’s not a very cordial invitation,” said O’Brien, with sarcasm, “but if your brother gives his word—”
“Do you doubt me?” asked Bertram. His voice had a savage note.
“I’m in your hands,” said O’Brien, more humbly.
Presently Joyce came in. They had not heard the front door open, so that her appearance in the room was unexpected. She stood for a moment in the doorway, her fur cloak half slipping from her shoulders. Then she spoke to Susan, not hiding her surprise.
“Hulloa! Anything wrong?”
Perhaps it was their silence, some look in their eyes which suggested to her that something was “wrong.”
“You’re looking splendid again, Joyce,” said Susan, in her best “society” manner. There was always a sense of armed truce between the two girls. Bertram’s sister resented what she called the “haughty condescension” of Bertram’s wife. Joyce had not disguised from Bertram that in her opinion Susan was “a dangerous little spit-fire—with atrocious manners.”
“I’m quite well, thanks.”
Joyce glanced at O’Brien, who had risen from his chair as she had come in.
“Won’t you introduce me?” she asked Susan.
Susan said, “This is Dennis O’Brien, my husband.” It was very calmly said.
“A surprise!” said Joyce. “Congratulations to both of you, and all that, I suppose. Rather sudden, wasn’t it?”
She failed to shake hands with Dennis O’Brien. As she had told Bertram many times, sometimes amusing times, and sometimes not, she hated all the Irish except half an Irishman.
She sat in Bertram’s low arm chair, yawning a little, with her long white arms behind her bobbed hair.
“A cigarette, Bertram!”
Bertram gave her the cigarette, lit it for her, and mumbled something about the late hour, and bedtime. He had a foreboding that Joyce didn’t intend to go to bed until Susan and Dennis had gone. And Dennis was not going.